In Contention

Category: Daily

  • Gilliam talks completing ‘Parnassus’ without Ledger and his defining film moment

    Terry GilliamAt Comic-Con last month, Motion/Captured’s Drew McWeeny was fortunate enough to sit down with director Terry Gilliam for a solid 60 minutes, allowing the conversation to drift from actors like Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt to the Criterion Collection to Gilliam’s latest, the still domestic distributor-less “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” and everything in between.

    The piece is broke up into two parts.  Part one is interesting enough, especially for the mid-interview interruption by some idiot who should have known better, but I think the meat of the piece is in part two, where Gilliam starts to talk the philosophy of cinema and “Parnassus” in particular.

    Gillaim talks at length about the film’s state of disarray after Heath Ledger’s untimely passing in January of 2008, leaving an entire performance to be completed and no easy answers.  He called Johnny Depp first, completely sapped with no idea how to go forward.  Ultimately Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law filled in for Ledger for the character of Tony’s three transformations in the film, but even completing the script at hand was difficult for some on the production.

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  • ‘I Can Do Bad All By Myself’ poster flaunts what Taraji P.’s got

    I Can Do Bad All By MyselfOkay, I can’t stand Tyler Perry’s movies and I think “I Can Do Bad All By Myself” is an awful title (and a film I honestly hadn’t heard of until today), but when Drew McWeeny posted this exclusive poster premiere over at HitFix, my jaw hit the ground and, well, I had to share.

    See, I pretty much fell head-over-heels for Taraji P. Henson last year.  I ran into her constantly throughout the season after interviewing her early on for a Variety profile and the girl has so much spunk it’s hard — uh, difficult — not to feel a primal surge of attraction when she’s around.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she’s got a body to die for (and at 39 years old, no less).

    And this poster pretty much spells that out for you.  I say do away with the floating heads, the silly tagline and the cast listing and leave it at sultry Taraji and the credit capsule at the bottom.  It would be more striking that way, less “safe” (because let’s face it, those smiling mugs surrounding Henson pretty much wink at the viewer and say, “It’s okay, this is a Tyler Perry joint.”)  Give me edgy and fierce any day.  And hell, it might even sell me on the title.

    Check out the full poster after the jump.

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  • Quote of the day

    Good work Paramount, not screening G.I. Joe got everyone to talk about it (some twice) and you don’t even have to deal with the reviews.

    Twittered by Brad Brevet of Rope of Silicon.

  • Why not remake ‘Gunsmoke’ as a TV series instead?

    GunsmokeIt’s become gospel that there is no shortage of cribbed thinking and conservative rehashing going on in Hollywood these days.  And now it seems the trend is stretching into the slightly revitalized western genre with CBS Films’ development of a feature film based on the old “Gunsmoke” television series.

    The film recently landed writer Gregory Poirier (he of “Rosewood” and “National Treasure: Book of Secrets”), but as I read through Boris Kit and Stephen Zeitchik’s Risky Biz Blog story at The Hollywood Reporter, I kept wondering why Hollywood doesn’t take the next step here and just revamp the property as a full-blown series once again.

    “Gunsmoke” was filmed at the Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio up in Newhall, right outside of Santa Clarita.  I’ve been there a couple of times and the Veluzat brothers, Renaud and Andre, who own the property, are stand-up guys who get a lot of business out of their old town set.  But not many westerns are going through there anymore, beyond the occasional Hallmark Channel entry.  The last time things were booming was back in the “Deadwood” days.

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  • Marrying art and film at Venice

    Steve McQueenOne of the most unique virtues of the Venice Film Festival is that it every two years, it runs alongside the Venice Biennale — the world’s foremost contemporary art showcase, spanning almost 6 months and housing exhibitions from over 90 international artists. The overlap between the film festival and the Biennale can therefore bridge the artforms in some exciting ways.

    As much as I’m looking forward to attending the Venice fest in September, I’m as excited to sample the delights of the Biennale for the first time, not least because two artist-filmmaker hyphenates I really admire will be exhibiting new work.

    Steve McQueen, whose Bobby Sands biopic “Hunger” was one of the great directorial debuts of recent years, will be representing Britain on the international pavilion, has been the talk of the Biennale since unveiling his 40-minute gallery film “Giardini” in June. A cinematic portrait of Venice and its residents in winter composed of minute environmental details — greyhounds lurching in alleys, the roar of distant football crowds — it has drawn ecstatic notices from the art press. I’m keen to check it out.

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  • No reason whatsoever

  • Heist/movie musical short film starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

    (from left) Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-LevittIt seems the folks behind the summer romance “(500) Days of Summer” have been up to some extra-curricular activities as of late.  Director Marc Webb and actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel recently put together a short film inspired by heist cinema and movie musicals that is…frankly kind of pointless.  But it served as a nice exclusive for USA Today and will surely be a delightful diversion for the film’s many fans.

    Here’s a taste of Anthony Breznican’s story:

    Gordon-Levitt plays a stoic man in a neat blue suit, turning to crime in a moment of absolute desperation. Deschanel is the gorgeous, wide-eyed teller, disarming the dangerous man (metaphorically speaking) in a playful, twirling, fox-trotting dance through the stuffy, starkly lit marble lobby. The other dour denizens go about their business unaware.

    Providing the soundtrack: the song Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? by She & Him, Deschanel’s retro-rock duo with musician M. Ward.

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  • 8/5 Web Round-up

    G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra• Tom O’Neil wonders whether “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” is Razzie-bound. [Gold Derby]

    • Devin Faraci, meanwhile (one of the “easy marks” Paramount screened the film to over the rest of the nation’s critics), comments on the “No ‘Joe’” brouhaha. [CHUD]

    • And Steve Weintraub talks to the film’s screenwriter, Stuart Beattie. [Collider]

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  • ‘The Lovely Bones’ trailer

    You can see the full, un-edited (and voice-over-free) version at Apple, or by clicking the image below.  Paramount is pulling the rights violation card on embeds, so I’ve removed the YouTube clip.  Any new embeds will likely be yanked as well, so I won’t bother.

    Having finally taken a look at the full version, I am immediately taken by the overall look of the picture.  Andrew Lesnie’s photography is gorgeous to say the least, and the visual effects could very well find their way into Oscar contention.  Stanley Tucci looks certifiably creepy and could be someone to watch, but on the whole, still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I got an overall “meh” feeling here. I’ve never read the book, so I’m not champing at the bit like some of the devoted. Maybe that explains it, I don’t know.

    The Lovely Bones

  • ‘Young Victoria’ to close TIFF, Egoyan’s ‘Chloe’ added

    Rupert Friend and Emily Blunt in The Young VictoriaToronto is obviously digging the corsets this year. Weeks after Jon Amiel’s Charles Darwin biopic “Creation” was announced as the opening film of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, fest organizers have revealed that Jean-Marc Vallée’s “The Young Victoria” will close proceedings.

    This choice of bookends gives an odd symmetry to the festival schedule: both films are (or appear to be, since I haven’t seen “Creation” yet) old-fashioned Anglocentric period biopics with minimal buzz.

    The choice of “Victoria” is an unsurprising one, given that Vallée is a hometown boy whose last, considerably more interesting, effort “C.R.A.Z.Y.” won the Best Canadian Feature award at the 2005 festival. But it’s a disappointingly stiff choice for such a prime spot.

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  • Say it isn’t so

    The ObserverSorry for veering away from movies for a minute, but no true friend of journalism can afford not to care about the likely imminent closure of The Observer.

    The world’s first Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791, and still one of the greatest weekly reads in circulation, looks headed for the chop as the Guardian Media Group (owners of The Observer and its daily sister paper The Guardian) begins some recession-induced downsizing.

    Among its numerous other journalistic virtues, the paper is currently home to Philip French, one of the UK’s most venerable film critics, and Lynn Barber, the interviewer par excellence whose life serves as the inspiration for the much-anticipated fall release “An Education.”

    It’d be sad to see such essential writers out on their ear. And my hungover Sunday breakfasts would be a lot less edifying without them and their paper.

  • Ben Stiller vocal about ‘Cove’ support

    Ben StillerCoincidentally, an AMPAS member.  From The Daily Beast’s Buzz Board, dated July 16:

    I just saw The Cove at the Nantucket film festival and was deeply affected by it. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It’s important, entertaining, suspenseful, moving, funny—everything a movie should be, but happens to be a documentary about the ongoing dolphin slaughter in Japan, a very important subject. But it’s not just about dolphins, it’s about people doing incredible things: Rick [sic] O’Barry, the focus of the movie, has become an instant hero for me: He’s been taking chances and standing up for what he believes in for a long time. After I saw the film, it made me want to literally jump out of my seat and go to Japan to become an activist alongside Rick and his team. I didn’t, because we had a rental in Nantucket for the rest of the month—but still, they managed to do some pretty amazing things over there.

  • The Heath Ledger-directed music video for Modest Mouse’s ‘King Rat’

    King RatOne of the question marks left dangling after the untimely passing of Heath Ledger in January of 2008 was the music video for Modest Mouse’s “King Rat.”  Conceived by the late actor, the video seemed to be lost to the winds as the band, understandably, didn’t want to be seen as capitalizing on the star’s death.

    It was announced back in March, after some admirable persistence from the guys at The Playlist, and an eventual pick-up in the pages of Spin Magazine, that the piece would finally have its day in the sun.  And today, we finally get a look.

    Exclusively released on MySpace, the video serves as a piece of activism in its role-reversal depiction of whaling practices.  It’s pretty staggering, actually, and, of course, dovetails perfectly with the “Cove” conversation that’s kicked up on the site yesterday and today.

    Check out the video and the full press release after the jump.

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  • Trailer for John Campea’s ‘The Anniversary’

    Earlier this year, In Contention friend and The Movie Blog owner John Campea put together a few thousand dollars and a crew of dedicated filmmakers and actors and set about making his first feature narrative film.  He had already tried his hand at documentary filmmaking with “Prince of Peace, God of War.” I haven’t seen the film since an early cut but for the budget he was working with, I thought Campea put together a solid little flick.

    He’s released a red band trailer for the film and we’re more than happy to pass it along here.  Hopefully he makes a deal and gets it released:

    “The Anniversary” Trailer from campea on Vimeo

  • Eric Bana’s summer versatility

    Eric BanaOne of the highlights of Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” for me was Eric Bana’s supporting performance, a perfect blend of jack-assery and sincere complexity that stood out from the otherwise troubled film (along with Adam Sandler’s rather brilliant portrayal).  It wasn’t until later, though, that it hit me how diverse Bana’s output has been so far this year, with featured but strikingly varied roles in Apatow’s film, “Star Trek” and “The Time Traveler’s Wife.”

    I haven’t seen the latter yet, but I was pretty much on-board for Bana’s villainous turn in J.J. Abrams’s franchise reboot.  The role perhaps suffered from a lack of motivation in many ways, the only botched element of the story, but that’s not Bana’s fault and he carried across a Romulan vengeance-seeker with relative ease, I thought.

    Well I guess I’m not the only one impressed by Bana’s versatility this summer.  Writing in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, Lisa Rosen has taken note, using the occasion to remind that “Funny People” brings Bana back to his first brush with entertainment years ago in his native Australia.

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  • Test screening adoration for Reitman’s ‘Up in the Air’

    George ClooneyYesterday’s Oscar update featured a number of prediction hikes for Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” including firm placement among the predicted Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress nominees.  As I wrote in the column, the film has been getting great notices out of test screenings and the studio seems to be pretty invested in an awards run.

    Today (and I never do this, but it’s positive, so I’ll go for it) Jeff Wells has received a test screening review of the film and posted it up at Hollywood Elsewhere.  It’s a giant gusher.  The guy calls George Clooney’s leading performance “Cary Grant crossed with Warren Beatty” and the role one the actor “was born to play.”  Even though it was a test screening, the reviewer calls it a “near perfect film” and describes a trippy dream sequence that sounds creatively intriguing and narratively fascinating.

    In a nutshell, the guy is head over heels for the flick.  Take it or leave it, but it sounds mostly legitimate to me.

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  • ‘Cove’ comfort

    The CoveYesterday I opened my heart regarding Louie Psihoyos’s documentary “The Cove,” so it’s understandable that I’d be eager to see what the local outlets have in the way of media coverage as the film moves further into its limited run.

    Unfortunately, this Rachel Abramowitz story at the Los Angeles Times isn’t particularly insightful and covers a lot of the same behind-the-scenes material revealed in the film, but it nevertheless serves as a pretty good primer for those interested in the project.  In particular, Abramowitz talks to Psihoyos about the covert mission at the film’s center, which transforms the picture into something of a thriller, the seams of documentary filmmaking seemingly disappearing, making way for a compelling narrative.

    I think it’s important to characterize this film properly, because I’ve talked to a couple of people in the last few days who express an ambivalence to see it because of personal reasons, unable to handle the depictions of dolphin slaughter.  That scene is held until the end and is all of maybe three or four minutes.  It’s used effectively as the climax to a riveting espionage tale.  This is not a gruesome picture.  You can handle it.  Trust me.  Go see it.

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  • 8/4 Web Round-up

    Kate Beckinsale• Kate Beckinsale talks about the gritty new roles peppering her career as of late. [The Times]

    • The top 20 horror films of the last 20 years. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Recounting “District 9″‘s serendipitous path to the screen. [Los Angeles Times]

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